Although I personally do not agree with all of Benjamin
Barber’s ideas presented in Consumed,
there were some arguments that began to stick. One of which is the idea of Easy
over Fast where Barber states children are more prone to take the easy, fast, and
simple way whereas adults used to be more prone to talking the hard, long, and
complex way. In our present day society however, Barber shows how adults are
becoming more like children due to the Infantilism ethos and therefore are
taking the same path children are. He states “Ours rewards the easy and
penalizes the hard. It promises profits for life to those who cut corners and
simplify the complex at every turn” meaning our society encourages and supports
the easy, short way(Barber 87). To make things worse, society now allows
certain qualities or attributes in a person that were once seen as
unacceptable, “Lying, cheating, and deception (especially self-deception) are features
of the human condition” and are now being more acceptable since it gives people
are legitimate reason for taking the easy way. After reading this and letting
it sit for a while, I was slowly starting to see this in my everyday life. Even
though most of Barber’s arguments are not the same as mine, I do understand the
significance of the Easy over Hard idea. At school I see a lot of people
copying each other’s homework in order to obtain the desired grade, but by not
doing to work (by taking the easy way).
However, this is one of the very few things I
found in this book that I actually enjoyed. I personally believe Barber uses to
many useless words, like the first sentence of the book, “In these paltry times
of capitalism’s triumph, as we slide into consumer narcissism, Shakespeare’s
seven ages of man are in danger of being washed away by lifelong puerility”
(Barber 3). There is so much word salad throughout this book, it makes understanding
Barber’s overall thesis incredibly difficult to read and learn. I found myself
taking an hour break after reading for almost an hour to fully understand what
Barber was trying to convey. What made me very upset too was that Barber only suggests
options to solve the problem at hand, which he has spent almost 280 pages
discussing. I do realize that a solution to such a problem is quite difficult
to do. So although there are many things that I disagree with that Barber
states in Consumed, there were some arguments
that I tended to see in everyday life. The constant word salad made the book
difficult too, but as I read on, the book became more suitable for reading.
Barber, Benjamin R. Consumed:
How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. Print.
